“Exactly. You get out of the way. These guys, they’re precogs. They aren’t dishing out punches or blasts that shred spacetime to disintegrate everything in their paths. They’re dishing out destiny.”

“You want to get out of the way of destiny?” Rain asked.

“One of my plans,” Chris muttered. “I was ready to go, but that went to hell.”

I shook my head. “Not getting out of the way, exactly, because there’s another component to fighting enemies bigger and stronger than you are. I even used this against Titan Oberon. Use their strength against them. If they swing for you, help them move in the direction of the swing, and they stumble. It’s a principle in judo, and other grappling martial arts, to use your enemy’s momentum against them.”

“You want to seize destiny… and help it along?” Rain clarified his question.

“Yes.”

“Is it too late to rescind the ‘came back with a brain’ statement?” Chris asked.

“Let’s assume they have clear goals. The Simurgh wants… that. Whatever that was. Humanity under her sway, her with Titans, Endbringers, and an army of capes brought back from the dead to protect her. Titan Fortuna wants to bring about the end of our world so their species can try their hand at replicating. Both have similar endpoints. But those are just that. Endpoints. What happens after the end?”

“The world is enslaved, or the world blows up,” Byron said.

“Immediately?”

“The slavery, it seems like. The world blowing up… don’t know.”

The scenes played on the walls around us as we talked about them. By the time Byron was done talking, there was one scene on one wall, and another on the other. Cracks spreading, the entire world turned to crystal, and the entire world with their heads in their hands.

“It takes a short while to roll out when initiated,” Number Five said, pointing. “Forty minutes.”

“Then that’s our goal and our window of opportunity,” I said. “Titan Fortuna wins, she pushes the world to the brink.”

“And we push it back?” Rain asked.

“Let’s hope,” I told him. “We need to talk to the person inside the Titan to figure out if there’s room to negotiate. It’s possible she might not need to eat or drink, but she has other stressors. That fuckery with the Simurgh—sorry, Chicken.”

“Imp swears more than that.”

“It’s a stressor for the Titan,” I said. “Which means maybe there’s room to steer this, or maybe she’s so focused on her end goal that she can’t see what lies beyond it, but a lot of that depends on talking to the person, and that means we need to access Kenzie’s tech.”

“Which isn’t doable,” Rain said.

“I really, really hope she’s okay,” I said. I looked back at Chicken Little. “Thanks for the info. Tell us if anything changes?”